How I Held up the Acropolis Express

David Seagrave

1972

It was the summer of 1972 and I was at Glasgow University. I had passed end of term exams so I decided to visit Greece to photograph her ancient monuments. Though the Colonels were then in power I took a pragmatic view - I was only interested in the ancient Greeks. I travelled by the 'Acropolis Express' and I had a fairly uneventful ten days where I took photographs of nearly every ancient Greek or Roman site in Athens and within reach. I had on me a voucher for a train ticket back to Britain which had to be exchanged in a travel agency in Venizelos Street. I was weary after a long journey on the Peloponnesus railway and looked in vain for Venizelos Street and had to board the Munchen bound Acropolis Express with the voucher, not the valid ticket or be stranded in Athens. Away went the train and as I viewed simply fabulous scenery on the 700 or so km journey on Thessaloniki I was accosted by ticket inspectors.

A fellow traveller told me that the Colonels had renamed Venizelos street Panepistimiou (University) Street because Venizelos was a Greek statesman of similar stature to Churchill and rightly honoured yet execrated by the Colonels but everybody still referred to the street by its old name. In 2007 I discovered that it is once more Venizelos Street with Panepisimiou below in brackets. ... (continues)